


Call On Your War Gods

by May_Seward



Series: Universal Constants [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Shiro, F/F, F/M, Future Fic, Garrison Commander Lance, Garrison Commander Veronica, Garrison Vice-Admiral Shiro, Gen, I tried to edit this thing for length and just ended up making it longer, Its kinda ambiguous deliberately but Im tagging it just in case, Lots of Shiro&Akira content in the third chapter, McClain'verse, McClain'verse origin story, Mentions of Death, Now in three parts!, Post-Canon Divergence, Ryou is Kuron from HIWTHI, Set 15 years after the end of the war with the galra, Shallura break up??? Kinda??, Shiro is very mentally ill, Shiro still captains the Atlas (for now), This was supposed to be a short one shot, Trigger warnings for discussions of mental illness, Very Minor Character Death, black paladin lance, but on the plus side we get McClain'verse!Pidge and Shiro so????????, it got away from me, married shallura, mentions of injury, past major character death, sequel (and prequel? time is weird) to Home is When the Heart is, so Im publishing it before it breaks 11k or something, so keith is dead sorry, the paladins are high ranking garrison officers, they/them pronouns for Pidge, this got angsty sorry, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 15:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17429030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May_Seward/pseuds/May_Seward
Summary: It was supposed to be over.The universe is at peace, but a new enemy has risen, one that threatens not just this reality, but every single one it touches. And it won't stop until it's spread it's twisted form of peace throughout all of the multiverse.For the first time in fifteen years, Voltron is called to war.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, I'm back! A lot of the reviews on my multichapter fic [Home Is When The Heart Is](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13835823/chapters/31819209) said you wanted to know more about the Great Altean Commonwealth and the future team's inter-reality war so this is the start of my exploration into that side of the story. This monster is technically a prequel to Home Is When the Heart Is, but I recommend you read that first because it explores some of the background of McClain's universe in more detail.  
> The cliffnotes version (SPOILERS FOR HIWTHI):
> 
> Trigger warnings for trauma, murder and suicide
> 
> \- Sometime after Keith leaves for the BoM but before Naxzela, Keith goes on a mission for the Blade and is killed. The team doesn't find out right away, because it was the sort of mission that required Keith to be out of contact and therefore wasn't able to call for back-up or extraction.
> 
> \- In this universe, when Shiro was stuck in the astral plane after the fight with Zarkon, he spent a long time travelling from reality to reality (in this AU the astral plane is like the border where realities touch, kinda like the metaphysical version of the quintessence field). The things he saw in those realities haunted him even when he returned to his own reality. He was stuck there for much longer than in canon.
> 
> \- This is partially because Lotor never created the Altean Colony, Haggar did. Lotor's alliance was genuine, and his motives were slightly different than in canon. This AU and Lotor's part in it was conceptualised long before season 6 so anything we learn about Lotor in season 6 never happened here. Anyway, no evil Lotor, no Sincline VS Voltron fight, no discovery of the clone until later.
> 
> \- Shiro's clone was activated in an important Coalition meeting. He went on a rampage and killed ten coalition delegates, fighting for control all the while, before managing to kill himself so he couldn't hurt anyone else. This is how the paladins found out he was a clone.
> 
> \- Another benefit of the Season 6 fight with Lotor never happening: the Castle of Lions survived, although Voltron still returns to Earth with the Galra invasion and the Garrison still builds the Atlas.
> 
> \- Shiro takes a long time to recover, mentally, if not physically. He still struggles with what he saw on the astral plane. Therefore, with no Keith and Shiro out of action, Lance takes the mantle of Black Paladin and leads Voltron with one lion pilot-less.
> 
> \- Shiro does, however, recover enough to start living his life again. After the war, he and Allura finally get together, get married and have a daughter named Akira.
> 
> \- there's lots of other stuff explored such as relationships, events that happen for the paladins AFTER this prequel, etc. but that's the most plot-relevant stuff for now.
> 
> Just a note about the Shallura content: This AU began life around the time season 3 was released. The announcement that Shiro was mlm happened while I was writing the last third or so of HIWTHI, and I tried to incorporate it into the universe as best as I could. As a nb lesbian myself, I have no desire to erase Shiro's queer identity and his relationships with men. For the sake of this fic, the Shiro of this reality is bisexual and he was already in love with Allura by the time he met Curtis so that never happened, but his relationship with Adam (and Adam's death, unfortunately- sacrifices had to be made) still happened as it did in canon. Thanks for understanding!

The stars drifted slowly past the viewport of the Captain’s office on the IGB _Athena_ on her routine patrol of the quadrant. In six weeks’ time, her posting would be over, and her crew would return home - wherever in the universe “home” was for them. For Captain Veronica McClain, “home” meant Earth, capital of the Alliance of Independent Systems, or, to those who had fought in the war against the Galra Empire as she had, the Voltron Coalition.

She missed home. Don’t get her wrong, Veronica loved her job. She loved having her own crew, exploring the universe, keeping her people safe. She loved being at the forefront of something momentous, being a part of something important; the advancements the Galaxy Garrison had made over the past two decades was worth it a hundred times over… but she did miss her family. She missed her nieces and nephews, one on assignment with his uncle on the IGB _Thetis,_  one a pilot with Ares Squadron assigned to the IGF _Atlas,_  and the other five not yet finished school. She missed her siblings - all three of them, although Lance and Marco sometimes made it difficult – and she missed her mom. She missed her dad, too, but even when she returned to Earth she would never get to see him again and that phantom limb still ached when it rained.

Most of all she missed her own little family unit; her partner Axca and their daughter Myra. Six weeks was a long time to wait after so long already spent apart. Luckily, IGHQ had already approved her leave application which meant that when the _Athena_ returned home, Veronica would have several months before she had to think about returning to space – hopefully, this time with Axca and Myra in tow. Axca had been saying they should take a vacation.

Veronica sighed and sat back in her chair, discarding her latest log for the moment. Nothing interesting or noteworthy had happened in weeks anyway, but these logs were important to maintain a cohesive picture of the ever-expanding known universe, so she usually was able to get through them without too much trouble. Records made the universe make sense. Veronica preferred the universe to make sense.

Still… It had been a long assignment and she was ready to go home.

A screen appeared on her desk with an incoming call from the bridge. She accepted it with a curt, ‘McClain.’

The pale face of her Head Communications Officer Romilus, a red-haired Altean with purple markings, appeared on the screen. _‘Captain, I'm picking up a transmission.’_

‘Origin?’

_‘Unknown, Ma'am. It's not a frequency used by any system known to the Alliance.’_

Veronica frowned. ‘Play it.’

An audio wave appeared on the main viewscreen, accompanied by a hiss of static and a series of beeps in a complicated pattern.

‘Where is it coming from, Lieutenant?’

_‘A few light years outside of our patrol pattern. Sending the coordinates to you now.’_

On the desk's console, a screen lit up, displaying a video feed of empty space.

 _‘Ma'am,’_ Deputy Communications Officer Pini appeared suddenly in a second viewscreen. _‘It sounds like someone’s answering.’_

Something like dread settled deep in Veronica's stomach. It was the same feeling that had saved her life when her team had been ambushed by Galra sentries on a retrieval mission during the Occupation of Earth a decade and a half ago. It was the same feeling she'd had when Myra had broken her leg at school while Veronica was on assignment half a galaxy away. She was not in the habit of ignoring that feeling.

‘Put the ship on alert,’ she ordered. ‘All personnel are to be prepared for an attack. I’m on my way.’ She ended both calls and stood, striding quickly towards the elevators that would take her to the bridge. An automated loudspeaker announced the alert level overhead, as grating on the ears as always, and she tried not to wince at the too-loud sound.

The bridge was just as loud when she arrived, officers barking orders and reading out strings of numbers to each other as they did their jobs. Veronica had to intercept her HCO in his dash to the other comms station. ‘Romilus, get me Commander Holt on the line _now_.’

Romilus skidded to a halt but immediately stood to attention to receive his assignment. ‘Which one, ma'am?’

‘The younger.’

‘Yes, ma'am!’ With a salute, he disappeared back to his station.

By the time Veronica had arrived at her command station overlooking it all, a screen was lit above her console, displaying the pale face of Commander Pidge Holt.

 _‘What's the problem, McClain?’_ Pidge asked. _‘Your nervy CO said it was urgent.’_

‘I need your expertise,’ Veronica replied, while she sent the audio signals over to Pidge on the IGSV _Daedalus._  ‘We received this set of transmissions while on patrol. What can you tell me?’

The feeling of dread grew more and more solid the longer Pidge kept typing.

 _‘It's definitely a message,’_ they said after a moment. _‘It's some form of encryption. There's something underneath it. Hang on, let me...’_

There was a moment of tense silence between the two of them, broken only by the bustle of the bridge below. Veronica started worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, a bad habit Axca kept nagging her to break. She nearly broke the skin when a new voice sounded over her desk speakers, first in a language she didn't understand, then Pidge pressed a button on her end and it morphed into recognisable English.

_‘- first signs of intelligent life acquired. Inform Admiral Hira we are ready to move to phase two.’_

The entire bridge fell silent.

‘Are you hearing this?’ Veronica asked, pulling up the Alliance database for any records of the name mentioned in the transmission.

Pidge didn't answer.

A new voice: _‘Phase two confirmed. Proceed with the invasion. Blessed be Empress Allura IX.’_

Pidge blinked and seemed to reboot before her eyes. _‘Oh, quiznak.’_ They stood straight up, movements jerky, and Veronica realised that was fear written on their face. _‘Call Lance and Allura. Tell them we're gonna need Voltron.’_

‘Who are they?’ Veronica demanded.

_‘Really bad people. Hunk and I are on our way. I'm gonna call HQ and tell them the situation. Just sit tight and don't engage until Voltron gets here.’_

‘You can't _form_ Voltron!’ Veronica protested. ‘And you haven't flown in years!’

 _‘We'll make do.’_ Pidge replied tersely. _‘See you in a bit.’_ They cut the connection without another word.

There it was: the drop. When the bad feeling turned to stone and plummeted through the floor with a sickening emptying sensation. It left her clear-headed and energised, ready to move. She didn't know the specifics of the situation, but she trusted Pidge, and if Pidge thought it was bad enough to bring Voltron out of retirement, she needed to act quickly.

She took a deep breath and addressed the crew on duty. ‘We have to assume the source of those transmissions is hostile. The ship is now on Red Alert. You all know what to do. Romilus, call IGHQ. Can anyone give me an update on the source?’

‘We've picked up two fleets of unknown origin on the mid-range scanners,’ First Officer Patel replied. ‘One looks smaller, a scouting force, maybe? They appeared out of nowhere.’

‘Show me.’

An image was brought up on the main viewscreen. Three unfamiliar ships hung in space. It was difficult to tell without a reference, but the first looked large, much larger than the other two, with what was probably a control deck protruding from the hull just enough to provide a 360-degree view of the space around it. The bodies of all three ships were otherwise beautifully streamlined, painted silver and blue. Several hundred klicks behind them, four more ships of a similar design, and one near the back of the convoy that looked like a giant ring with protruding spikes approached the front fleet.

Someone breathed, ‘What the _quizak_ is that?’

‘Ma'am,’ Romilus called. ‘The writing on the hulls appear to be Altean.’

‘Can you read it?’ Veronica asked hopefully.

Romilus shook his head. ‘It's not in a dialect I’m familiar with. It may take some time.’

‘Work fast. Kiias, change course to intercept.’

‘Yes, Captain,’ the Olkari pilot replied and stars streaked across the viewport as they came about.

‘Captain,’ Comms Officer Pini called. ‘Admiral Holt for you.’

The ageing face of Pidge's father appeared on the screen. He looked tired but alert like he'd been asleep when he got the call. _‘I'm sending the Atlas to your location. Vice-Admiral Shirogane should be with you momentarily.’_

‘Sir, is he up for this? As it is, two ships might not be enough.’

Sam frowned. _‘How bad is it?’_

‘Eight ships total. So far.’

Sam cursed. _‘Quiznak. The_ Thetis _is on leave. I’ll send them to reinforce you. Anyone else will be several hours away.’_

Veronica winced. She didn’t like those odds, and she certainly didn’t like the _Thetis_ being involved in something that could go so wrong. ‘And Voltron?’ she asked.

 _‘The Lions are on board the_ Atlas _. We're hoping the Red Lion will bond with one of the MFE pilots, otherwise, you'll be stuck with four.’_

‘I guess four is better than none,’ Veronica admitted grudgingly.

 _‘Veronica, you should know-’_ Sam began, then paused. _‘This woman, Hira, has come up against Voltron before, during the Galra War. Her army isn't from this reality. The fact they are here is a sign that something far larger is at work. You have to be careful.’_

‘Yes, sir,’ Veronica replied, opting not to question him. The specifics could wait until her crew and those they protected were safe.

‘Ma'am,’ Systems Officer Cthyn said. ‘A Garrison shuttlecraft just exited a wormhole. Issued to the IGSV _Daedalus_.’

‘Good. Let them dock.’

Cthyn called out, ‘Captain, the advance fleet will be within attacking range in ten minutes.’

‘Get the shields ready and wait for my order,’ Veronica ordered. ‘Isaev, I want all ammunitions charged and ready to fire the moment they’re within range.’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

Veronica turned to Patel. ‘Get Nike Squad charged and ready to go. The moment this goes south, I want them out there.’

Patel saluted and exited the bridge at a swift walking pace, already talking on her wrist comm.

‘Cthyn, are you picking up anything of what they’re capable of? Shielding? Weapons systems, anything?’

The systems officer shook their head. ‘They’re just barely coming into range of our short-range scanning systems. I can tell you they appear to be running off Balmera crystals, but that’s all we’re picking up.’

‘Keep me updated.’

‘Captain!’

The bridge doors hissed open and Pidge rushed inside. Behind them stood a familiar figure that took up most of the doorframe. Despite the situation, Veronica relaxed a fraction. Lance’s two best friends had that effect on most people, possibly due to a strange combination of being two of the kindest people Veronica had ever known and also two of the deadliest.

‘How far away are they?’ Pidge demanded, making a bee-line for the comms station. Thoroughly startled, Romilus leapt out of his chair in time for Pidge to sit down in it.

‘The advanced fleet is six minutes out, Commander,’ Romilus yelped as he moved out of the way.

Hunk crossed his arms over his chest emblazoned with the Intergalactic Garrison Fleet logo in bright yellow. The unusual colour marked him as a former Yellow Paladin of Voltron, a perfect match to Pidge’s green one on their own chest. ‘Veronica,’ he said quietly, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her. ‘This ship can’t take on an entire Altean fleet. You need to wait for Lance and Shiro.’

‘We might not have a choice,’ Veronica pointed out.

‘Wait for Voltron,’ Hunk insisted.

Veronica pursed her lips. ‘Fine,’ she allowed. ‘Kiias, fall back and wait for my order.’

‘Wait, Captain!’ Cthyn interrupted. ‘The fleet just accelerated in our direction.

Pidge stood up from their chair. ‘They spotted us.’

Within the space of a blink, the viewscreen was full of sleek silver metal. There would be no waiting for Voltron now.

‘Shields up!’

* * *

Lance’s arrival at Intergalactic Garrison Headquarters was not his finest moment. The emergency call had woken him from a dead sleep and he had grown too used to getting a full night in the years since the war had ended to be up and at ‘em like he had when he was younger. The _Thetis_ , the only ship Lance loved almost as much as his lions, was already being loaded when he arrived, and the _Atlas_ was nearly ready for launch. He couldn’t see any of the Shiroganes around, but right now he had other priorities.

‘Rizavi!’ He called, as soon as he spotted a dark ponytail disappearing around a corner, clipboard in hand.

His First Officer skidded to a halt to let him catch up. She took in his dishevelled hair and haggard expression with a flick of her eyes and narrowed them at him when he just shrugged, shifting uncomfortably in his armour. ‘Black looks weird on you,’ she said. ‘I liked you better in Blue.’

‘Well, you know how it is, new war, new me.’

‘It isn’t a new war,’ Rizavi countered but she hesitated near the end, trailing off uncertainly. Lance frowned back at her, thinking the same thing. They couldn’t afford to be complacent, not when names he hadn’t heard since the Galra War were being thrown around.

‘Black fits better now, anyway,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m built more like Shiro now than I was the first time around.’

‘True.’ She paused. ‘You look fucked,’ she said bluntly, and Lance winced.

‘Not my fault my sister decided to call for back up in the middle of the night,’ he grumbled. ‘I need to talk to you. I don’t know what we’re going up against, but they’re calling for Voltron. I’m going to need you to take the _Thetis_ while I go ahead in Black.’

All remnants of Rizavi’s usual teasing self melted away. ‘They want _Voltron?_  I-’

‘Can you do it?’ Lance pressed. Rizavi’s eyes went wide. She was his second-in-command, a long-time friend, and she had the training, but, although she was a proud Galra War veteran, she was untested in this kind of combat. This was a gamble and they both knew it.

Rizavi nodded. ‘I can,’ she replied after a moment.

‘Good,’ Lance nodded, already running through a list in his head of all the other things he needed to do before he could be out of there. He flashed her the ghost of a grin, allowing the anticipatory adrenaline to filter into his veins, that familiar flash of black lightning that never failed to make his heart quicken even as it tore open old wounds. ‘See you on the other side,’ he said, and turned on his heel, jogging towards the docks.

It was more difficult than expected after so long, to shed the persona of ships’ commander and re-don the Voltron Paladin’s mindset that had been the defining feature of his youth – no, his _life_ – for so long.

Voltron hadn’t flown in ten years. Lance’s connection to his lions hadn’t faded in that time, he constantly had Black in his head wherever he went. He always stopped off at the Lion’s hangars whenever he was at IGHQ to have a chat with Black, Red and Blue; about what his family were up to, his latest assignment, his memories of the old days when things were better and worse and the same all at once. Black, Red and Blue, they were all a part of him and always would be- he could feel it. He had flown Red the longest during the war, first as Keith’s right-hand man, and then Not-Shiro’s. Once Shiro had returned, broken and scarred in new ways only he ever saw, and Keith had… gone… Lance had taken on their legacy. He had become the Black Paladin and led his team through the final days of the war with one paladin down. Blue… Blue was his first. She would always hold a special place in his heart because of that, even though Allura was her Paladin now and would likely always be.

‘Lance!’

As if summoned by his thoughts, Allura caught up with him and they sprinted down the hallway together. Her hair had been recently cut, just short enough at the front that she couldn’t pin it behind her ears quite yet, and it served as a reminder that no one had been expecting this call. They had all thought it was over.

It was supposed to have been over.

They all stood in a line, Blue, Red, Black, Green and Yellow, each with their particle barriers up. Garrison officers bustled about, shifting Yellow and Green onto loading ramps so they could be moved safely to the _Atlas_ ’ hangar bay.

The Black Lion’s particle barrier dropped with a flick of his mind, Black’s presence pressing closer in as she realised there was something going on. She growled in the back of his head as he relayed everything he knew to her in the space of a heartbeat.

He focused back on Allura, catching her by the arm before she could dash off to her own lion. ‘Listen, I need to know; what happens if Shiro can’t handle this?’

‘He can,’ Allura replied, steel in her voice. ‘He needs this, Lance.’

‘But what if he can’t? Who steps up when he disappears on us?’

Allura swallowed. ‘He has a capable First Officer in James. The _Atlas_ is in good hands, Lance. Shiro’s getting better.’

Lance grit his teeth. Allura was no idiot, but Shiro’s condition affected her more than she let on. She was too focused on what he needed to consider the implications of letting him pretend he was fine. Peacetime had that effect on people sometimes, especially people in love. ‘I want Coran and the Castle of Lions.’

Allura blinked. ‘They’re on Pollux right now.’

‘I know,’ Lance insisted, ‘but if I’m going in against whatever this is, one lion down, with the _Atlas_ under Shiro and Griffin, and Rizavi untested in the _Thetis,_ I want something I can rely on.’

‘Lance!’ Allura gasped. ‘I can’t believe you don’t trust-’

Lance shook his head vehemently. She didn’t understand _._ ‘He’s Shiro! Of _course_ , I trust him, but my _family_ are on those ships out there. My niece and nephew and my sister are being dragged into this fight. I need a guarantee!’

Allura swallowed. She was silent for a moment, then she nodded. ‘I’ll call Coran,’ she said.

Lance let out a breath. ‘Thank you.’ As she turned to head towards her own Lion, he called out, ‘Allura? You know I love him too. We all do. I just don’t want anything to happen to him out there. You know that, right?’

Allura nodded. Her eyes glistened. ‘I know.’

Lance headed up the Black Lion’s ramp with a dreaded feeling in his stomach. He put his helmet on with a sigh and sat down in the pilot’s seat, reacquainting himself with the controls. ‘Hey there, beautiful. Long-time no fly. What’cha say we do a little ass-kicking?’

Black purred in the back of his mind and he couldn’t help but laugh

‘Yeah, I thought so,’ he grinned. ‘Let’s go.’

 _‘Lance, wait!’_ Allura cried in his ear. Lance winced at the unexpected sound.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘ _I can’t- I can’t connect to Blue!_ ’

Lance leaned forward so he could see more of the hangar. On his far left, she stood in front of Blue, the glowing particle barrier still resolutely in place. ‘You can’t feel _anything_?’ he demanded. ‘You sure?’

The ant-sized Allura in his viewscreen gripped her own helmeted head in frustration. ‘I can feel her, she just won’t let me in!’

‘Quiznack!’ Lance glared in Blue’s direction. ‘Dammit, Blue, we don’t have time for this!’

The far off arctic wind that was Blue caressed his mind, blowing snow flurries of his own memory at him.

_‘Blue’s not responding to me!’_

_‘Well figure it out and get out here.’_

Keith’s voice, startlingly clear – clearer than Lance had ever been able to summon in his own memory – but _why?_

Oh.

_Oh._

‘Allura,’ Lance blurted, already typing out a message to Shiro on his dashboard telling him to load the Blue lion onto the _Atlas_ with the others. ‘Reach out, can you feel any of the other Lions?’

_‘You think I’m meant to fly a different one?’_

‘Just- try!’

Lance waited, barely breathing, as Allura went very still.

 _‘I think…’_ Allura began. _‘Oh!’_

Lance grinned as he felt something in his own consciousness shift. Red’s pilot light presence flared with a bonfire roar and Allura jumped as the Red Lion, in the process of being lifted onto a loading ramp by a giant crane dropped to the hangar floor as her barrier disappeared. She landed on quick feet and tossed her head with a roar that rattled the building hard enough to shake desert dust loose. Lance felt tears spring to his eyes. It felt like watching an old friend come back to life, a surge of pure joy burning right between his ribs where a gaping hole should be.

‘Congratulations, Allura!’ He crowed. ‘Now let’s get moving!’

* * *

Akira Shirogane wanted to scream in frustration. ‘You can’t kick me off!’ she protested. ‘You promised!’

‘Kira, please,’ her dad begged. ‘This is dangerous. I need you safe.’

‘You promised!’ She repeated, crossing her arms over her chest and glowering like a child. She knew what it looked like, but she didn’t care. Her dad was being unreasonable, and she was sick of it. ‘Please, dad,’ she murmured, some of the fight leaving her as frustration boiled over into desperation. ‘I don’t wanna be left behind again.’

‘I called Colleen,’ dad said. He mirrored her emotions on his own face, eyebrows turned up and eyes pleading. ‘You can stay with her, and we’ll be back before you know it.’

‘Last time you said that you were blank for weeks!’

Dad flinched. ‘That’s not going to happen this time,’ he said evenly. ‘Akira, it won’t, I promise.’

It was the waver in his usually sure voice that finally did it. He didn’t want to send her away, he was just afraid of what would happen if he didn’t. For the trillionth time, she wondered if he had seen a version of this coming fight that ended with her lifeless body- or her mom’s. He only wavered like that when he thought something bad was going to happen- real or… not.

‘You can’t keep me on the ground forever,’ she warned but relented, turning to leave.

‘Kira,’ he called. She turned back, suddenly hopeful- ‘I’m sorry.’

Her heart sank. ‘I know.’ He was always sorry.

She wished he would stop.

‘Lucas!’ he hailed the unlucky cadet that had passed by the open door at the wrong time.

‘Yes, sir?’ she asked, stepping through into the Captain’s office.

‘Make sure my daughter makes it back to solid ground,’ he sent Akira an apologetic smile.

Lucas saluted. ‘Yes, sir.’ She started ushering Akira out, with one hand resting on her shoulder. ‘You and your dad have another fight?’ she asked kindly once they were out of earshot.

‘What gave it away?’ Akira grumbled. ‘Come on, Simone, you know I’m not stupid. I just want to do what he does, I want to fly and see the universe. I’m the only one in my family that hasn’t.’

‘Your parents still not letting you join the Garrison?’

Akira shook her head. ‘He doesn’t want me to be a soldier like him.’

Simone blinked her big dark eyes slowly. ‘I’m sure they’ll change their minds. Just give it time.’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

An alarm blared through the halls, her father’s own voice booming along with it.

_ALL PERSONNEL RETURN TO YOUR STATIONS FOR TAKEOFF._

Simone cursed. She glanced at Akira guiltily. ‘You didn’t hear that.’

‘I’m fourteen, I know what a swear-word is,’ Akira snapped, then winced. ‘Sorry.’

Simone sighed. ‘I have to go, but you better move quickly. Your parents will be furious if you’re still on here when we lift off.’

‘I know, I can make it.’

‘See ya, kiddo!’ Simone waved and disappeared around a corner, running for the engineering deck.

Akira turned and started jogging towards the elevators. Once inside, she quickly thumbed the button for Deck 1 and scuffed her shoe against the floor.

Something growled. Akira jumped, heart in her throat, and glanced around looking for the source of the noise.

There- louder, more urgent, and this time, a wave of feeling came with it.

Akira hit the emergency stop button before the thought had even crossed her mind. Alarms blared, and she clutched one hand over a sensitive pointed ear as she stabbed at the door open button with her other hand.

The roar sounded again, and she surged towards the doors, prying them open with her fingers. It took all her strength just to get them open enough that she could wriggle out and haul herself onto the floor that had stopped at her chest height. She scrambled to her feet and took off down the corridor, following something she couldn’t articulate. It was just… a feeling, the knowledge that she had to go this way, turn down that corridor, run faster like she was supposed to do it. Like whatever was at her destination was _meant_ for her. To be hers.

She nearly smacked clean into the door when that feeling told her to stop. With a swipe of her hand, it slid open and with a startled cry she realised where that overwhelming feeling had taken her.

Every cruiser in the Garrison fleet built during the war had a hangar bay big enough to fit the five Voltron Lions. The _Atlas_ had been the first, an alternative to the Castle of Lions built to defend the Earth against the Galra invasion. Mom said it was so the Garrison had a ship with the same capabilities as the Castle under their control. Dad said that every gun counted when fighting the Galra, and he couldn’t complain because the _Atlas_ was his lion now. Akira had never understood that no matter how many times Uncle Lance and Uncle Hunk and Pidge had tried to explain. It was like being surrounded by adults laughing at a rude joke she was too young to understand.

Until now.

The Green and Yellow Lions were like giant statues. They looked cold and dormant, surrounded by glowing particle barriers. The Blue Lion sat at the far end, her own barrier like a magnet drawing Akira closer.

She had always loved the colour blue. It was the colour of home; her mother’s eyes when she laughed, the wide blue sky her father couldn’t stop looking at, the ocean Uncle Lance always took her swimming in whenever he was on leave in the summer. It was the colour of the ice cream her uncles Hunk and Matt always served when she went over for dinner, and the colour of the light that reflected off Pidge’s glasses whenever she fell asleep at her computer.

The blue barrier dropped, and Akira stared up in wonder at the lion her mother had taken her flying in sometimes when dad was in one of his worse moods. He had been so much better recently, enough that they hadn’t been flying in years.

The Lion lowered her head in invitation and Akira took another step towards her, and another, until she could reach out and touch-

The Blue Lion’s presence washing over her mind was like the first frigid step into the ocean. It froze her to the spot, seized the breath in her lungs, made her want to leap back onto warm sand, but Uncle Lance had taught her well. The shock was always easier to get through when you dived in headfirst.

Akira sucked in a deep breath and plunged herself into the new presence lapping at the edges of her mind. It was as much of a shock as she had been expecting. At first, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, she couldn’t feel anything but the burning of her skin in the cold, the tension in her muscles as her body reacted to the water, and then all that faded away. As she adjusted to the Blue Lion’s presence, she felt the cold dissipate as a soothing cool current washed over her like a balm. The tension left her body. The chill retreated. She came up gasping for air, grinning and relaxed, ready to dive back in.

The Blue Lion shifted under her hand as Akira revelled in the water of their shared consciousness. She had the distinct impression Blue was laughing at her. In her mind’s eye, she spread her fingers and brushed them through the lion’s – _her lion’s_ \- stream of thought, sighing at the velvety softness of it passing through her fingers. She let herself be pulled along the current of Blue’s mind until she was brought back to herself.

She removed her hand from Blue’s jaw and the lion opened herself up for her. Akira took her first step up the ramp. ‘Hey there,’ she whispered, hushed as if in prayer, moving her fingers like she could still feel the lion’s thoughts drifting over them, brushing reverently over the inside of her jaw as she stepped through into the cockpit. The dashboard lit up under her touch and Akira grinned as she settled in the pilot’s seat. ‘Looks like you’re mine now.’

She gripped the controls in both hands, trying to remember the flight simulator drills Pidge had taken her through a few times. The Blue Lion purred in encouragement, and a laugh bubbled out of Akira as she felt her joy reflected at her from her new best friend.

The airlock opened, and a small shuttle landed on the hangar floor. With a jolt, Akira realised that outside was black as the void and speckled with stars. They were in _space_.

Ooooh boy, her parents were going to be _so_ mad.

Two familiar figures piled out of the shuttle, dressed in their distinctive colour-coded paladin armour. The green and yellow particle barriers disappeared. The smaller one, unmistakeably Pidge, stopped and pointed in the Blue lion’s direction, tugging on the arm of their companion. Akira giggled and waved, even though she knew they wouldn’t see her. Uncle Hunk cocked his head in confusion but shook it and hurried inside his own lion when Pidge called him to hurry up.

A moment later, a small screen appeared on her left, filled with Uncle Hunk’s face. ‘ _Allura?_ ’ he asked. _‘What are you- oh, uh… hi, Akira._ ’ He frowned and coughed awkwardly. ‘ _Where’s your mom?_ ’

Akira blinked. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, suddenly worried her mother was frantically searching the ship for her wayward daughter. She winced. ‘Uh, maybe…’

‘ _I’m here,_ ’ her mom interrupted, appearing her own screen right next to Hunk. ‘ _The Red Lion chose me!_ ’

Pidge and Hunk whooped in celebration.

_‘Aw yeah!’_

_‘Hey, that’s awesome!’_

Akira tried to make herself as small as possible curled up in Blue’s pilot’s seat in the vain hope her mother wouldn’t notice.

‘ _Thank you-’_ Her gaze abruptly hardened. _‘Akira Melenor Shirogane what are you doing there?_ ’

Busted.

Akira scrambled upright again and cleared her throat. ‘I, uh, I just- I was leaving the _Atlas_ like dad said and then I heard…’ she shrugged helplessly. ‘Blue called to me and I came.’

There was a stretch of stunned silence. Her mom gaped. Hunk’s eyebrows disappeared behind his visor.

‘I’m sorry,’ Akira whispered.

Pidge’s expression turned curious. Another face appeared next to theirs. _‘Welcome to the team, Paladin,’_ Lance said with a wry smile, eyes twinkling in the purple light of his own cockpit.

Akira gripped the controls tighter, sitting up in surprise. ‘Uncle Lance! I can be on the team?’

Lance shrugged, and Akira wished she was close enough to hug the life out of him. _‘If Blue says it’s okay, that’s all the confirmation I need.’_ He paused. _‘Allura?’_

It took her just long enough to respond that Akira thought she was about to get a scolding. Instead, their eyes locked through the screen and her mother smiled. _‘I’m so proud of you Akira.’_

‘You’re not mad?’ Akira asked, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Her mother shook her head. _‘No. I know better than to get between a lion and her Paladin.’_

Lance shook his head. Akira thought he might be laughing silently, but it was difficult to see. _‘Alright then, team. Form up on me. Now you’re all here we can focus on taking out those cruisers.’_

In the hangar, the Green and Yellow lions stood up and faced the open door. Akira’s heart pounded as the Blue lion followed their leads. A Paladin. She was a _Paladin of Voltron._  Blue rumbled, brushing against her mind, offering reassurance and instruction. Somehow, Akira knew what to do. The Green and Yellow lions leapt out into the void and Akira threw her weight forward, shoving both joysticks after them.

The Blue Lion vaulted into the void and Akira was _flying_.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT 15/04/2019: Hi everyone! If you've subscribed to this series and got a notification that I've updated, I'm sorry to disappoint. I was taking a break from the Voltron fandom after season 8 because I was disappointed in the show and had kinda lost my love for it for a while, but I was inspired to revisit the series and now I'm back! 
> 
> Rereading this 10k oneshot, I realised that it was unfinished. There was more that this story needed to tell before I could move on to the next project so I wrote it! After reviewing the oneshot in its original form and the new content, I decided to cut the oneshot in half so this chapter 2 is really the second half of what was the original oneshot. No new content here if you've already read the oneshot in its entirety. Sorry! However, I am about to update chapter 3 which WILL be new content so keep an eye out for that! This way, all the chapters were roughly the same size and I felt it flowed better so that's why I'm bothering with all the fluffing about.
> 
> If you're reading this story for the first time, welcome, and enjoy!
> 
> May xx

Lance didn’t like their odds. Even with the _Atlas,_  the _Athena_ and Voltron’s full complement onside, the enemy fleets outmatched them in both number and firepower.

To his left, the Red Lion ducked and wove through incoming enemy fighters with an air of someone who had been cooped up too long, her tail flicking when it wasn’t being used to blow up enemy ships. He could feel Black’s own eagerness surrounding him, and her contentment now her pride was whole again. Akira and Blue stuck close to the group, firing at anything that came too close to the other lions or the Garrison ships nearby. Pidge and Hunk were doing their own thing, but even though he couldn’t see them, he knew they were devastating the fighter horde that blockaded the advance fleet. He could see the main fleet in the distance, approaching steadily but apparently happy to let the advance fleet weaken the Garrison ships’ defences first.

A bright beam of light cut across Lance’s view of the battle as the _Atlas_ fired on the biggest and nearest of the enemy ships. The target listed to the side, barely escaping the blow, but it was enough. _‘Their manoeuvrability far exceeds the capabilities of anything in the Garrison fleet!’_ Pidge observed. _‘They seem to have sacrificed shielding for agility. Their shielding abilities aren’t that much better than the Galra ships we fought in the war.’_

‘Then we use that against them,’ Lance decided, gunning for the ship that had just escaped the _Atlas_ ’ beam. ‘I think it’s time we formed Voltron. Everyone, on me!’

‘ _Wait, how does that even_ work?’ Akira shrieked over the comms, wide-eyed. So far, she had been circling the outskirts of the battle, firing on any ships that got past the dogfighting in the space between the enemy Altean fleet and the Garrison ships.

‘It’s okay,’ Lance assured her, throwing one arm forward that sent Black rocketing above the battle, the Red and Green Lions already on each side of the viewport. ‘Blue will guide you. Just relax and let it happen.’

He thought he heard Kira mutter, _‘this is so freaking cool,’_ and then Blue pulled up into formation on Allura’s other side.

Forming Voltron was like watching Red come alive, like greeting an old friend, and yet at the same time, it was nothing like that. He realised suddenly he had never been at the head while forming the robot warrior, a fact he was reminded of as the connection with his team flicked on in his head, one after the other, like flipping a switch. He could sense it as each lion connected to the torso, instinctually knowing where each part of Voltron was in relation to themself the same way he knew where his hands and feet were in relation to his own body. There was so much information running through his head. It was almost too much.

Pidge’s presence from this end of the connection was a light in the dark, their analytical mind running through possibilities and scenarios so quickly Lance normally didn’t have any hope of catching up. Allura’s history as the leg and heart of Voltron remained, a steady flame of determination and righteousness burning on a solid base of stone like a hearth fire. Hunk, with his healthy restraint, a reminder of what they were fighting for, always, always at the front of his-now-their-mind. Akira, the missing link, was a surprise. Her mind crashed into Voltron with all the power of a waterfall, all youthful exuberance and wild energy, the crackle of negative ions before a summer storm. Her wicked grin in the video feed was familiar only because he had felt the exact same thing on his own face all those years ago when flying Blue was still the greatest adventure in the universe.

 _‘Mom, I’m a leg!’_ Akira gasped. He could feel her awe and surprise through their connection and failed to stifle a smirk.

 _‘It’s pretty cool, huh?’_ Hunk grinned, his love flowing through the bond on Akira’s heels. Lance gave them all a second to adjust to the connection after so long- but they only had a second.

‘Alright team,’ he said. ‘Let’s take out those cruisers. _Atlas_ , _Athena,_  are you ready to coordinate an attack?’

* * *

Shiro braced himself against the _Atlas’_ console as the whole ship shook. ‘Damage report!’ He blinked away afterimages of exploding decks and casualties not-yet-sustained and focused on breathing. He couldn’t lose it here. He _refused_.

 _‘Shields took most of the damage,’_ Lucas reported over comms from down in Engineering. _‘As long as the shields hold, we’re okay for now.’_

‘Shields holding at seventy-three per cent,’ Systems Officer Fichtar reported.

‘Get ready to lower them on my word,’ Shiro instructed. ‘Charge the ion cannon and lock onto the nearest cruiser.’ He closed his eyes for a moment in a vain attempt to get his vision back into focus. In the main viewport, the ships kept changing shape; one moment, they were the sleek silver ships he _knew_ were present in this reality, the next they were a purple fleet of Galra cruisers or one of a thousand other invading armies he’d seen over the lifetimes he’d spent in the astral plane.

They all looked the same when it came down to it, and no matter who he was fighting, the point still stood. He needed to win. If only he could just _focus_. The soul of the _Atlas_ rumbled in the back of his mind, nudging him in the direction he needed to look. He latched onto it, let it ground him in this reality and willed his head to stop spinning. He opened his eyes.

There was a minefield between the _Atlas_ and the enemy fleet. Tiny explosions from the various dogfights between the three MFE Squadrons out there and the enemy fighters bloomed and faded like fiery flowers in a time-lapse. The Black Lion shot across the scene, her tail laser firing off shot after shot at incoming fighters. Somewhere, he knew, Allura was wreaking devastation in Red- and that in itself was a surprise. He was proud of his partner, more than anything, but just the flash of red as she and the Red Lion darted past was enough to uproot him after so long. The Red Lion being pilotless was a rare thing in all the realities he’d seen. The knowledge that, in a way, she had died at the same time as Keith had was an incontrovertible fact that, however much it still hurt, reminded him which reality he was in and what he had to do to stay there.

Still…

What he wouldn’t give for the rest of Voltron to join the fight.

‘Ion cannon charged and locked, sir!’ Weapons Officer Floros announced.

‘Shields, now!’ Shiro took in a breath. ‘Fire!’

The shot aimed true, a brilliant beam of golden light searing across the battlefield to the nearest Altean cruiser. A surge of triumph rose in Shiro’s chest-

Until the enemy ship listed hastily to the side and the shot missed by a hairs-breadth.

‘How the hell did they do that?’ Griffin demanded from his station.

‘They can dodge our shots!’ Floros gasped, antennae curling slightly in surprise.

‘Sir!’ Griffin exclaimed suddenly. ‘Look, Voltron!’

Shiro looked. He blinked and had to resist rubbing his eyes like a child to make sure what he was seeing was _this_ reality and not some other, better version. It was Voltron. Not just the lions, but the robot warrior themself.

The bridge of the _Atlas_ burst into a cacophony of whoops and cheers.

‘Take that, Admiral Hira!’ someone shouted. Shiro was way beyond figuring out who it was. His head was too busy spinning, a thousand versions of the robot warrior dancing on top of one another. It was _impossible_ …

 _‘Atlas, Athena,’_ Lance’s voice reverberated through the bridge, his worn-down face appearing on Shiro’s console. ‘ _Are you ready to coordinate an attack?’_

‘ _Who’s in the Blue Lion?_ ’ Veronica McClain demanded, popping up beside him.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Shiro said blinking rapidly. A thousand possible faces flickered across his vision, but he brushed them aside as best as he could and focused on this reality, this battle, this crew. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘Incoming fire!’ Fichtar yelled.

‘Brace for impact!’ Griffin ordered and Shiro held onto the console with white knuckles as the ship shook again. He tuned out Griffin demanding a damage report and fixed his eyes on the McClain siblings.

Lance had a wicked grin on his face. His eyes glinted almost purple in the light of his lion. Like Keith’s. _‘They can’t dodge our shots if we send three at them at once from different angles,’_ he said. _‘Voltron will try and get above the main battlefield. The Athena and Atlas should move so you can both get a clear shot without hitting each other. Once we’re all in position, Shiro can call the shot.’_

Shiro shook his head. ‘No, Lance, you call it,’ he insisted, trying to sound trusting rather than like he was about to fall over. ‘You’ll have the better vantage point.’

Pidge’s face appeared next to Veronica. _‘I’m sending you both coordinates for the best advantage,’_ they said. _‘We’ll focus fire on the foremost battle cruiser.’_

Communications Officer Tomov called out, ‘Coordinates received, sir!’

A flash of black hair had Shiro freezing where he stood.

_No._

The chaos of the bridge faded to white noise.

_No, please._

The lights flickered as the _Atlas_ took another hit.

_Not now. Not here._

Shiro barely noticed.

He was too busy looking at Keith.

He was in the Red Paladin’s armour. As Shiro stared at him, the rest of the scene came into focus. He was standing in the Black Lion. It was odd, even after Black had been Lance’s for so long, being near the Black Lion, let alone inside the cockpit, without a whisper of her presence in the back of his mind was disorienting. A reminder that he wasn’t really here.

‘ _Atlas,_  what’s your status?’ Keith demanded. He pulled on the controls, hard, and the Lion banked sharply right, out of the way of a bright blue beam of deadly energy.

‘ _We’re okay,_ ’ Shiro heard his own voice echo through the cockpit, slightly tinny over the comms. _‘How’s Voltron? That last hit was pretty bad.’_

‘We got tossed around, but we’re okay,’ Keith reassured the other Shiro. ‘Pidge, how long until that weapon comes back online?’

 _‘A few minutes max,’_ Pidge replied. Outside, the viewscreen was dark, star-splattered space. Familiar, sleek silver ships hung in space a few kliks away.

 _‘We have to retreat,’_ other Shiro said. Shiro wanted to scream.

‘Shiro, no, we can’t!’ Keith insisted immediately. ‘If we let them get away, who knows what they’ll do to this reality!’

‘Keith,’ Shiro said. He didn’t mean to, he knew Keith wouldn’t be able to hear him. No one ever did, no one could ever hear him when he was-

A flash of blue eyes kept him from spiralling further. He wasn’t still… He wasn’t stuck in the astral plane anymore, he wasn’t aimlessly wandering realities as little more than a ghost, he was _alive_ and he had a family. If only he could- If only he could remember…

 _‘Keith, listen to me,’_ Other-Shiro said but-

He didn’t sound right.

Keith seemed to think the same thing at the same time. He called up a video feed of the other end of their call and narrowed his eyes at the two men standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the screen. They were both Shiro. Or, they both looked like they should be Shiro. They both had his grey eyes and the scar across his nose, but one had hair that was totally white and short at the sides, like Shiro’s, and one had hair that was almost entirely black, save for a white streak that laced through a ponytail long enough to brush his shoulders.

‘Ryou? What are you doing here?’ Keith demanded of the dark-haired version. ‘You should be in the med-bay.’

 _‘I’m not letting my family fight without me,’_ Ryou retorted. He winced and shifted uncomfortably. The white-haired version shot him a sharp look.

 _‘Ryou, love, you have to go back to the medbay.’_ Shiro felt something in his chest tighten. That was Allura’s voice.

_‘I will when you get home safe. I can manage until then.’_

Keith glowered at them both. ‘Guys, focus! We don’t have time for this! We need to take out the command ship at the back of the fleet.’

 _‘Don’t know if you noticed, babe, but there are basically two fleets between us and it.’_ Shiro blinked. That voice… it sounded like Lance, but it wasn’t… Or, maybe it was a version of him that didn’t carry the weariness the Lance from Shiro’s reality seemed to wear like a second skin. He sounded young, bright, in a way Shiro had almost forgotten he could sound.

‘Hunk’s shoulder canon-’ Keith tried.

_‘Sorry, Keith, I can hit multiple targets with it but it wouldn’t have enough firepower to take any of them out like this.’_

Voltron dodged another spray of flak and fired a few shots back at the fighters that had gotten too close. The way they moved, Shiro could tell the paladins were communicating through the connection so efficiently Keith didn’t need to issue any orders out loud.

Shiro caught a glimpse of Keith’s battle-grin. A phantom ache pulled at him at the sight, the kind that would never truly go away.

‘Adam,’ he said and Shiro’s stomach hit the floor. ‘How accurate can you get the _Atlas’_ weapons systems if all the targets are moving?’

 _‘At the rate these guys move?’_ A voice Shiro had thought he’d finally forgotten asked. He could almost imagine the slight smirk on the owner’s face, calm, collected even in battle, but still confident enough in his abilities to quirk in satisfaction. _‘Probably eighty-five per cent?’_

The white-haired Shiro on the screen smirked. Shiro felt a matching smile spread briefly across his own face but that hurt, too.

 _‘What are you thinking, Keith?_ ’

* * *

‘Shiro!’ Allura cried, heart in her throat and close to breaking. She hadn’t seen the moment when his face had gone slack and his eyes unfocused, but she didn’t need to. She’d seen it before, she knew what an attack looked like.

 _‘I’ve got him,’_ James grunted over comms. _‘Daniels, get medical in here!’_

_‘Yes, sir!’_

Allura could barely breathe. This was her fault. She should have insisted. She should have stopped this. Red rumbled in the back of her mind, a wildfire presence she was still getting used to.

 _‘Where’s Rizavi?’_ Lance muttered, just loud enough to be caught by his helmet mic.

 _‘Griffin!’_ Pidge cried. _‘Get the_ Atlas _to the coordinates I sent you. Get ready to fire on Lance’s signal.’_

 _‘Roger that,’_ Griffin agreed and then all Allura had room to focus on where the swarm of fighters that had snuck up on them.

 _‘Allura, Pidge, swords!’_ Lance demanded and Allura felt the Red Lion rumble at her. She summoned her bayard and slammed it into the slot that had risen out of the dashboard. Light flashed in the space-dark window and she felt the lion surge across Voltron’s torso, slamming together with Green and then throw itself back into position, a long blade protruding from her mouth.

She fell deeper into the connection with Red and with Voltron, let them guide her movements, something that sounded suspiciously like Lance’s voice telling her to _move_.

She threw herself forward behind the controls with a grunt of effort, and the blade sliced clean through half a dozen fighters. Pidge’s shout of triumph echoed over the comms and through the bond and she knew that they had found similar success.

 _‘We’re in position,’_ Veronica announced, popping up on their feed again. _‘Ready on your word.’_

 _‘Good,’_ Lance said. ‘Atlas, _where are you?’_

 _‘In position,’_ James reported, gruff and professional. Allura tried to be glad that he was such a capable First Officer for Shiro, but a too-large part of her hated the fact that he needed to be.

Shiro had been getting better. He was supposed to be getting better. Perhaps “better” had been too much to hope for, after all. The thought made her feel sick.

 _‘Everyone, get ready,_ ’ Lance warned. Allura removed her bayard from its slot and the blade vanished in a burst of quintessence. Her body thrummed in anticipation, eyes fixed on her target, shoulders tense, waiting for the call. _‘Three, two-’_

 _‘Lance,’_ Hunk warned, his alarm rippling through the bond.

 _‘One!’_ Lance ordered and Allura fired.

Three beams of light, two blue and two gold, sliced through the vacuum at the nearest cruiser. The _Athena's_ shotgot closest first, and the cruiser lurched to the side- straight into the path of Allura’s and the _Atlas’_ shots. The cruiser exploded in a flash of light, the brief firestorm taking out a few unfortunate fighters as it blew.

Pidge and Akira both whooped as the flames disappeared, leaving behind nothing but debris. Then, Pidge gasped, _‘Incoming!’_ and Hunk and Akira both hit the thrusters, throwing Voltron out of the way as a wormhole opened right next to them and spat out two more ships: The _Thetis_ and the Castle of Lions.

* * *

Reality flickered in and out of focus. Sometimes, Shiro was in the Black Lion with Keith, sometimes, he was lying in the medical bay of the _Atlas,_  fending off medics as they fussed around him. Fighting for lucidity was like swimming desperately for the surface after plunging deep into freezing water. His limbs barely cooperated, his breath burned in his chest, but if he stopped fighting, he’d never get back and so he pushed harder, chest heaving until he broke through.

The last remnants of Keith’s world finally faded from his vision and he sat bolt upright, scrambling to his feet despite the protests of the medic beside him. ‘I have to get to the bridge,’ he gasped, barely able to catch his breath.

‘Admiral, you need rest-’

‘I need to get to the bridge!’ Shiro repeated, more desperate, and pushed past them, staggering to a wall and using it to keep himself upright even as the world tossed and turned like a ship in a storm.

‘Admiral on the bridge!’ someone announced when he stumbled out of the elevator and through the door. The place was in chaos, flak glancing off the shields in bright starbursts of blue and gold, the ship shuddering under each one. He vaguely heard Griffin calling Ares and Calypso squadrons back to recharge, Achilles squad flying out to replace them on the field. The _Thetis_ must have arrived.

Hanging over the battle like a tiny blue moon was the Castle of Lions, castle defences firing on enemy fighters at easily the rate of an MFE squad. Shiro almost feared that he was still stuck halfway between one reality and another because he hadn’t called Coran in for back up, but then he caught sight of his old friend on one of the video feeds at the console Griffin had taken over from him and relaxed slightly.

‘James!’ Shiro called, reaching the console and leaning against it, trying to take proper stock of the situation. ‘I have a plan.’

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ Griffin admonished, but he was too occupied to even glance in Shiro’s direction.

_‘Dad, you’re okay!’_

Shiro shook his head to get rid of his daughter’s voice. She wasn’t here, she was safe, she was-

She was in the Blue Lion. He could see her in the Voltron video feed. She wasn’t even wearing armour, just the purple sweater she’d been wearing that morning. He gaped at her and she shrank a little in her seat until Allura said, _‘Later, Shiro,’_ and Shiro remembered they were in the middle of a battle and he had to focus.

‘I know how we can take down the fleet,’ Shiro said, squeezing his eyes shut against the rocking of the ship.

Keith’s plan had been genius in its simplicity and startlingly… _Keith._  Even as a Black Paladin, his plans had required blistering speed, an unhealthily large serving of blind luck and stubborn refusal to accept defeat.

Lance’s face twisted strangely as Shiro relayed it to them, like he recognised, somehow, where Shiro had gotten it from.

 _‘That’s… Insane,’_ Pidge said, as soon as he was finished.

 _‘No,’_ Lance said. _‘It’ll work.’_

The fire in his eyes reminded Shiro that he had been a Red Paladin once, too.

‘Recall all MFE Squadrons,’ Shiro ordered the fleet at large. ‘They’ll just get caught in the crossfire.’

‘What about the enemy fighters?’ Griffin asked.

‘Coran, you’ll have to keep them from getting too close. You up for it?’

 _‘Yes, sir!’_ Coran agreed, and although he wasn’t as quick as he used to be, Shiro believed him.

‘Good. Let’s go.’

With some of the urgency that had propelled him there leeching out of his bones, the world faded away, muffling a little, losing some of its colour. Distantly, he heard Lance ordering Hunk to summon Voltron’s shoulder cannon and Veronica issuing orders to her crew. He backed away from the console, letting Griffin take over again until he felt the wall press against his back and slumped down onto the floor in an out of the way corner. Lance’s voice echoed over the comms and Griffin shouted something Shiro couldn’t parse out. The shoulder cannon unleashed hell on the remainders of the advance fleet, sending the ships into chaos. They moved too fast for Hunk’s multi-target system to hit them, but that wasn’t the point. Bright golden lasers shot, rapid-fire, from the three Garrison ships, intercepting the cruisers as they dodged Voltron’s attack. The battlefield blossomed into a wall of fire and Shiro closed his eyes against the brightness. Keith’s plan had worked, he’d saved them, even from beyond the grave. The thought made Shiro smile as blessed darkness crept into the edges of his vision.

 _‘Shiro, you’re brilliant!’_ Pidge crowed, but Shiro was too far gone to hear it.

* * *

Sometimes Rizavi regretted taking the promotion from MFE pilot to Fleet Officer, but once the war was over, that had seemed like the best way to stay a part of the action. They hadn’t needed the MFEs anywhere near as much after the Galra War was over, and she joined the Garrison to fly amongst the stars, not to fight. It didn’t matter, really, whether she did that from the bridge of a Garrison cruiser or the cockpit of an MFE. Or so she told herself.

Battle from the bridge of a Garrison battlecruiser was very different to battle in an MFE. She knew this, she had expected this, trained for it, but it still made her wish she was out there, getting into dogfights and pulling off squad manoeuvres with a joystick in her hands.

Some things stayed the same, though. Her heart still beat in time to the rhythm of the battle, her blood still sang with the adrenaline of a good fight. The aftermath of Vice-Admiral Shirogane’s frankly _insane_ move drifted between them and the second Altean fleet moving into the space the advance fleet had previously occupied. Seriously, where had they even come from? There was no way they were from Pollux, Haggar’s Altean colony they had discovered after the war.

The remaining enemy fighters retreated to the approaching fleet and a moment of silence descended over the bridge as the crew caught their breath.

The battle wasn’t over yet.

‘I’m not sure we’re going to be able to pull off the same move again,’ she said.

 _‘We have to try,’_ McClain sighed. _‘Everyone, get ready to go again.’_

‘The main enemy fleet will be in range in thirty ticks,’ Comms Officer Odell announced.

‘Weapons, lock onto your targets as soon as they’re in range,’ she ordered and was answered by a chorus of _yes ma’am._

‘Ten ticks,’ Odell reported.

_‘Hunk, fire on three, ready?’_

The fleet loomed large in the viewscreen. Risavi found herself holding her breath, waiting for the order.

Odell said, ‘Five ticks.’

 _‘Three,’_ Lance murmured.

‘Locking on,’ Weapons Officer Thiyo said.

_‘Two… one!’_

Risavi’s voice joined a chorus of _Fire!_ From the various commanders on the comms channel. The five ships of the main enemy fleet ducked and wove through the maelstrom the Garrison ships unleashed much better than before. Rizavi cursed. They’d learned from the advance fleet’s shortcomings and had anticipated the move.

‘Raise the shields! Evasive manoeuvres!’ she shouted as the Garrison’s shots died down and the enemy fleet returned fire.

Stars streaked across the viewport as the helmsman brought them about. She caught a glimpse of a shot hitting the _Athena_ dead-on, hard enough for the particle barrier around it to fail for a heart-stopping moment and then it was out of view again.

 _‘The Admiral says the big ship at the back is the command ship!’_ Griffin called out. _‘Focus fire there! They’ll have to protect it!’_

Rizavi didn’t question how he knew that, she just looked. The rearmost ship was unlike anything she’d ever seen. It was doughnut-shaped, with fin-like appendages flaring out from the main ring. Maybe they were thrusters? Who cared, as long as the Garrison took it out. In almost-unison, the Castle of Lions, the three Garrison ships and Voltron fired their ion cannons over the fleet towards the looming shape of the command ship. The entire thing lit up blue and Rizavi held in an anticipatory breath - _did they hit it?_ – but when the light faded, the ship remained in pristine condition.

 _‘It’s got an invisible particle barrier!’_ Commander Holt gasped.

 _‘Hit it again,’_ A girl’s voice Rizavi didn’t recognise suggested.

 _‘No, wait!’_ Veronica shrieked, just as a streak of light gathered and launched towards them. Rizavi didn’t have time to give any orders before a bone-shattering explosion ripped through the Garrison fleet.

Everything was consumed in blinding light.

* * *

Pidge blinked back to awareness slowly, a hand absently rising to clutch at their head. Everything hurt. Everything else floated to the forefront slowly, pushing through the pain. The dark silence of the battlefield, the memory of the blast that had exploded like a firework right in the middle of the Garrison ships.

Akira’s frantic voice was crying out over the comms.

_‘Hello? Is anyone there? Mom! Can anyone hear me?’_

Pidge sucked in a breath. ‘Akira, I’m here. It’s okay,’ they lied. They very much doubted anything was okay, but one thing at a time. No one could afford one of the paladins of Voltron having a panic attack in the middle of the battle.

 _‘Pidge!’_ Akira gasped through what sounded like a sob. _‘Thank the ancients! I-I thought- I thought I was the only one left!’_

Hunk groaned. _‘Oh, man,’_ he grumbled. _‘What the hell was that?’_

 _‘Whatever it was, it’s taken out the Garrison fleet,’_ Lance said, breathless with horror.

 _‘Akira!’_ Allura gasped. _‘Is she okay?’_

_‘Mom, I’m fine! Are you okay?’_

Pidge tuned out the Shirogane’s frantic voices and focused on the situation at hand. They must have only been unconscious for a few seconds, but in that time, the enemy fleet had stopped firing. In the sudden stillness, the space around them looked like a graveyard. The _Thetis,_ the Garrison ship that had ended up nearest the Green Lion, spun slowly as it drifted through the vacuum like a dead fish on the tide. In the distance, the _Atlas_ and _Athena_ appeared equally lifeless.

That ship had disabled the entire Garrison fleet in one shot.

Panic swelled in Pidge’s chest. There had been countless numbers of officers, cadets and crew on those ships. Lance’s family was on those ships. _Shiro_ was on one of those ships.

Apparently satisfied that her daughter was unharmed and whole, Allura asked, _‘Are we able to make contact with the rest of the fleet?’_

Pidge knew the answer, but they checked anyway. It took all of their willpower to keep their hands from shaking. ‘External comms are down.’

 _‘Yellow’s got no power,’_ Hunk reported.

‘Same here,’ Pidge sighed. The rest of the team reported the same. Pidge turned their attention to the enemy.

The enemy fleet began to move back towards open space.

 _‘They’re getting away!’_ Akira gasped, audibly renewing her efforts to rouse her lion. _‘Blue, come on! We have to-’_

‘Let them go,’ Pidge murmured. ‘Taking them now would just get us killed.’

_‘What? No, we can’t-’_

_‘Pidge is right, Akira,’_ Lance spoke over her frantic protests. _‘The universe is going to need us now more than ever. It’s over.’_

A wormhole opened up in front of the Altean fleet. Between one blink and the next, they had disappeared.

Pidge fought the urge to throw up, something sick and slimy settling in their stomach. Their ears rang with the deathly silence the enemy fleet had left in their wake.

Finally, in a choked, disbelieving whisper, Akira voiced the thought that weighed heavily on all their minds.

_‘We failed.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 will be coming very soon so keep an eye out for some McClain'verse!Matt, Lotor, and more Shiro!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The promised new content! This was originally going to be its own oneshot called "In the Wake of the Storm" but I realised it didn't work on its own, even as part of this series, so it's become the third chapter of this fic.  
> Chapter-specific trigger warnings in the endnotes to avoid spoilers. If I missed anything, please don't hesitate to let me know and I will add it either to the tags or the end notes to make sure everyone stays safe.
> 
> Enjoy!

Matt guided the shuttle towards the asteroid belt. Not for the first time, he wished his sibling and their lion were doing this job instead of him. The Green Lion was far sturdier and had way better manoeuvrability. The space outside was a minefield of ice and rock and dust, the light from the nearest dwarf star reflecting prettily off the various objects between them and it.

‘The first readings are coming through,’ Lotor announced from the back where the equipment was set up. Matt could hear the grin in his voice. ‘Take us closer.’

‘I take us much closer and we’ll be within squishing range,’ Matt argued, but nudged the shuttle the slightest bit forward, anyway. Lotor, the bastard, just shrugged. Matt shook his head. ‘This is why we bring Hunk on missions like this. He actually  _has_ a self-preservation instinct.’

Lotor huffed. It could have been a laugh, coming from him. ‘Hunk isn’t here so move, Commander.’

Matt laughed. ‘Alright, alright, keep your hair on.’

The cockpit was silent for a few moments. Then: ‘There,’ Lotor said. ‘That asteroid there. It has a high enough content of the material to take a sample and looks big enough to land on.’

‘Sure, if we don’t get turned into ketchup on the way down,’ Matt complained, waiting for Lotor to get the hint. He _hated_ flying.

Lotor sighed. ‘Swap,’ he offered. It sounded like an order, but Lotor had the uncanny ability to make everything he said sound like a command, that didn’t mean he expected it to be followed, it was just the way he was like he didn’t know how to speak in any other way. Matt had long since grown immune to Lotor’s imperious tone. _He_ was the temporary captain of the IGSV _Daedalus_ , not Lotor, which meant he was in charge.

‘Fine,’ he said, with as much dignity as he could muster and waited to let out his relieved breath until he was back with the scientific instruments and scanners. He hated not being the expert, it meant he was left playing taxi driver. Matt hated flying. He was an astrobiologist. Flying was what pilots were for. Lotor, Pidge and Hunk were all experienced pilots, but one was an overachieving alien and the other two were former Paladins of Voltron and therefore outliers that shouldn’t be counted. Or something.

‘We there yet?’ Matt asked, partially because annoying Lotor was always entertaining, and partially because Pidge and Hunk had been gone for several hours with no word and Matt was trying not to be nervous about it. He hated it when his sibling and partner went away on missions without him almost as much as he hated flying.

‘In a tick,’ Lotor replied without inflection. He was the most unflappable person Matt had ever met. That was part of the game: what does it take to ruffle Lotor’s perfect feathers?

Matt took down readings on the datapad Lotor had left back there while he waited for them to land.

Matt’s communicator beeped. He tapped his ear to accept the call.

_‘Commander,’_ the voice of the _Daedalus_ ’ comms officer on duty greeted him on the other end. _‘We’re receiving a transmission.’_

‘Play it.’

_‘It’s text, sir.’_

Matt frowned. ‘Send it to me.’

His datapad beeped with an incoming message and he brought it up. At first glance, it looked like a random series of numbers.

Curious, he made his way back to the front of the cockpit where Lotor was calculating their final descent onto the surface of the asteroid. ‘Where is it coming from?’

_‘23.342.85e.755. The last known coordinates of the IGB Athena, sir.’_

Matt’s curiosity transformed from something benign to something like fear in the space of a blink. ‘It’s Pidge,’ he said, mostly to himself. He studied the numbers again, this time running it through the double encryption he and his family had invented twenty years ago.

It didn’t take long. The message was only a few lines, but with every word, Matt felt more and more like throwing up.

‘It’s a distress call,’ he breathed out in horror. He gripped the back of the pilot’s seat with his free hand. ‘Get us back to the ship. Now!’

_SOS. IG fleet destroyed by hostile force. 3 ships down. Unable to make contact._

The IGSV _Daedalus_ was one of the few ships in the Intergalactic Garrison fleet that had an onboard teladuv. Since they were powered by a gifted Altean, it wasn’t practical to have them outfitted in every ship.

Luckily, they had Lotor.

Both men sprinted to the bridge as soon as the shuttle hit the deck, Lotor moving to the teladuv controls in the centre of the room without a word as Matt plugged in the coordinates.

When they arrived, they were met with devastating stillness. The Castle of Lions and Three Garrison ships, the _Atlas_ , the _Athena_ and the _Thetis,_ all hung in space like so many dead fish. There wasn’t a particle barrier in sight.

‘Scan the ships and surrounding space for life signs,’ Matt croaked. ‘Comms, try to get a hold of Pidge and Hunk. They’re here somewhere.’

‘Multiple life signs registering on all three ships, sir. Various species,’ someone reported. ‘Looks like some of the crew survived.’

‘Or they were boarded,’ Lotor pointed out.

‘No enemy ships in the area, sir,’ one officer said. ‘A boarding party seems unlikely.’

Matt vaguely registered the relief wash over him at the news, but they weren’t out of the woods yet. not even close.

‘Prep medbay to receive any wounded, get the shuttles ready to ferry survivors aboard. Lotor, you lead a party to the _Thetis,_ Haskel, you’ve got the _Athena_ , I’ll take the _Atlas_.’

He picked out three spare officers at semi-random and then he was off, dashing back towards the shuttle bay, his rescue party at his heels.

The IGF _Atlas_ was a ghost ship. Matt was jumping out of the transport shuttle before it had even touched down in the _Atlas_ ’ hangar properly, his crew following in his wake. There were no lights, no artificial gravity- which likely meant no life-support, and the darkness filled Matt with a sense of dread. The flashlights built into their space suits roamed the hangar, revealing nothing but dust, overturned crates and eight MFE fighter jets floating haphazardly a few feet off the ground, some at awkward angles. Matt barely spared them a glance. They were in their charging stations, unlikely to have had anyone in them when whatever had happened here… happened.

There was a flash from the door. Matt spotted an exposed wire spraying sparks at irregular intervals in one corner. He beckoned one of his officers. ‘Find out where everyone is,’ he instructed his team and jetted towards the door.

A huge shape loomed suddenly out of the gloom and he heard one or two cries of alarm sound from the group before they recognised it. It was the Red Lion, and behind her, the Blue. Allura was here. Matt reached the door and wrenched off the front panel, digging around for the internal wiring. With a flash of sparks, he hot-wired the door, and it hissed open. ‘Through here!’ he called.

The further into the ship they got, the better the damage looked. Ceiling panels dangled in their path, revealing more loose wires and miscellaneous debris but no people yet. Matt chose to think of this as a good sign. There were life-signs aboard the ship, there were survivors, they just had to find them.

His comm beeped with an incoming call and Matt’s heart leapt. ‘Pidge! Is that you?’

‘ _Matt, it’s Allura._ ’

Relief, sweet and heady, washed over him in a warm wave. ‘Allura, thank god! I’m on the _Atlas_ , we’re gonna get everyone out of here. Where are you?’

‘ _I’m on the bridge with Shiro, but we have crew trapped on the engineering decks,’_ Allura reported, her voice hard but even. _‘Life support is spotty. We’re trying to isolate it to the decks where it's needed to conserve oxygen and power.’_

Matt nodded. He rattled off instructions for his team to head down to the engineering deck and report back when they got there. ‘We’ll get them to the _Daedalus._ I’m coming to you. Where’s the rest of Voltron? Are Hunk and Pidge okay? Have you been able to contact the other ships?’

_‘The team is fine. The Lions protected us from the blast. Lance and Pidge have gone to check on the_ Thetis _. Hunk is on the_ Athena _. Comms are down on all the Garrison ships but I’ve talked to Coran. He and Romelle are okay. They’re working on getting the Castle back online.’_

‘Good. If he can get power back in time, we might send some of the more gravely wounded to him for a stay in the healing pods. I don‘t think everyone can wait until we can get them back to Earth.’ Matt swallowed. ‘How’s Shiro?’

Allura hesitated. ‘He’s blank, but otherwise, he’ll be okay.’

Matt pushed off in the direction of the bridge. The need to see Hunk and to make sure that he and Pidge were safe with his own eyes clawed harder at him with every corridor he floated down, but he squashed it the best he could. He had to think about the mission at hand. Allura and the Atlas crew were counting on him, and he needed to be focused.

_‘Commander,’_ Lotor’s voice crackled in his ear. _‘We’ve made it to the_ Thetis.’

‘How’s it looking?’

Lotor took a few moments to respond. When he did, his voice was solemn. _‘Looks like an explosion cost them several decks. Some of the crew got sucked into space through the breaches. We picked up a few bodies on the way to the ship. We’ll have to go back for the rest.’_

Matt closed his eyes against the upswell of guilt and grief at the news. ‘Good work,’ he said once he could keep his voice even again. ‘Lance and Pidge should be there. Keep an eye out.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Lotor replied and the comm channel went silent.

Matt had to force himself into an elevator shaft and use the jetpack in his spacesuit to head up to the bridge, counting floors as he went. His team reported in halfway up and Matt listened to them talk through the puzzle of how to get the crew out to the hangar through the decks without life-support.

After a few minutes, he started to hear voices.

‘This is the IGF _Atlas. Athena. Thetis_ , can anyone hear me?’

‘Give it a rest, Daniels.’ Griffin. ‘Focus on not letting your CO pass out. Adele, you still with us?’

A quiet murmur: ‘Comms are… still down, sir.’

‘I can see that. Focus on staying awake for us, alright?’

‘We have two who can’t wait much longer for a healing pod,’ Allura said.

Matt used his arms to help propel himself up the last few feet. ‘Allura!’ he called as he reached the bridge floor. Gravity was working in the bridge but not the elevator shaft and it took a few tries for him to hoist himself up onto the floor.

‘Matt!’ Allura darted over, moving as if to help him, but by the time she reached him, he was already rolling to his feet.

The bridge was a mess. With a cursory glance, he spotted one working console, one motionless lump in a garrison uniform, and several people sat up against the wall nearest the elevator, including Shiro, his eyes darting unseeingly back and forth, and Akira, curled up under her arm, her face wet with tears.

That raised several more questions than it answered, but Matt focused on the wounded. One of Griffin’s arms hung limply at his side where he sat on the only upright chair in the entire room, the other cradling it gingerly. Allura was unscathed, tending to the wounded lined up along the wall with Shiro.

One human woman was cradling a profusely bleeding head wound. An Olkari was out cold but breathing. The rest of the crew looked shaken, shell-shocked, but otherwise not seriously injured. That was a start, at least.

‘My team are moving everyone stuck in engineering to the transport,’ Matt said to a chorus of sighs of relief. ‘They’re all okay. Who else are we missing?’

‘We have forty-three life signs in the barracks, but we haven’t been able to make contact,’ Allura replied. Matt nodded and moved over to the one working console. He nudged aside the kid still fiddling with the controls- he was young, in cadets’ colours, and shaking like a leaf- and called up a diagnostics program. ‘I’ll see if I can get internal comms working so we can coordinate an evac,’ he said.

‘There are at least three decks without life-support between there and the hangar,’ the kid, Daniels, probably, protested.

Matt frowned. The monitor in front of him concurred with the cadet’s assessment. ‘What about the Lions?’ he asked, pulling up a map of the ship. ‘If we could gather everyone at a single point where Blue could punch through the hull and get everyone inside, we could get everyone to safety that way.’

‘That could work,’ Allura allowed. ‘Where?’

‘Here,’ Daniels pointed to a spot on the map. ‘It's on the same deck and it’s a big enough space for the lion to punch through safely.’

Matt nodded. ‘Kid’s right.’ He glanced at Allura. ‘Go, I’ll get internal comms working and direct you from up here.’

Allura and Akira both stood. As soon as Allura noticed, she stopped. ‘Akira, stay with Matt.’

‘I can help,’ the girl insisted. ‘I can fly-‘

‘No,’ Allura cut her off. ‘You aren’t in armour, you won’t be able to get to the hangar. Stay here.’

‘But-’

‘Akira,’ Allura said and her tone brokered no argument. ‘Stay with your father.’

Finally, Akira nodded, tucking herself back under Shiro’s flesh arm. Matt’s stomach clenched at the sight of his slack-jawed face. ‘Okay.’

Matt turned back to the console and set to work.

* * *

Shiro’s mind wandered back into his body in slow increments. A thousand lifetimes-worth of memories that shouldn’t have been his fading in and out like he had bad reception. Sound first; birdsong breaking the silence he hadn’t even known was there to break until he heard it. Then, the quiet rasp of something soft (flesh? A hand?) over paper, the creak of a page turning. The ever-present hum of a ship’s engines, as familiar as his own heartbeat, _more so_ , faded to nothing.

Sensation returned an indefinite amount of time later. He felt temperature again, his face soaking up something pleasantly warm.

With that, came awareness. He could feel his body sitting upright, feel the way gravity tugged at it incessantly, felt the clothes on his skin and the dull ache he got in his missing shoulder when he sat in the same position for too long. His eyes were closed, his face turned toward the warm thing. The sun, he realised upon opening them. He was sitting by a window and sunlight, real, Earth-grade sunshine, was streaming in. He was in his house, in his living room, in his armchair by the window where he could see the sky.

He turned his head, and the movement caught the attention of the other occupant of the room.

Akira yelped, leaping up from her position on the couch, her book tossed thoughtlessly aside. She crossed the room in a single bound and threw her arms around his neck, rocking them both backward in the chair until she collapsed in his lap, her tears swiftly soaking the collar of his robe.

‘You promised,’ she hiccoughed and Shiro wrapped his arms tightly around her small frame, his body slowly re-learning the motions of being a father again. He made gentle shushing noises, dragging the fingers of his flesh hand through her hair and pressing her close. ‘You promised,’ she repeated, and more memories resurfaced at her words.

Veronica’s call for back-up.

Akira arguing back at him, desperate not to be left behind again.

The army that had appeared out of thin air, Altean alphabet scrawled across their ship’s hulls.

Voltron.

The blast, then nothing. More nothing. Empty space that wasn’t empty. Faces he didn’t know, faces he did, faces he could never see in this reality. The reality where he could hug his daughter instead of just watching a hundred thousand versions of her from a distance.

Akira and Allura called his episodes ‘going blank’. Those times when he retreated so far within himself, remembering things he shouldn’t remember; realities, times, spaces he didn’t belong to. He’d watched himself do it once, like a ghost, a glimpse of his own empty face staring into the vast nothingness that contained all the universes inside his head. He remembered waving hands that didn’t exist in front of his own face, screaming at himself to just wake up, snap out of it, dammit! But unable to make a sound.

He’d promised his daughter - his _child_ \- that he had everything under control, that he could handle commanding the _Atlas_ on this mission. He’d promised, and he’d let her down.

Shiro has passed the rage stage of his grief at losing himself like this twelve years ago. He was well into his acceptance stage now, but for a moment that old fury at the universe for doing this to him, to his family, eclipsed everything but the solid weight in his arms. The white-hot, irrational rage that stole his breath away was short-lived, easily replaced by a bone-aching, soul-shattering, desperate sort of remorse.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered into Akira’s hair, voice cracking with disuse. ‘I’m sorry.’ Once he started he couldn’t stop. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated over and over again. They were just words, some sort of desperate, futile attempt to fight the black hole in his chest. She didn’t deserve a father like him. She deserved someone who was whole and sane and always, always there for her, who could comfort her and wipe away her tears without crying himself.

‘... I heard you over comms,’ Akira said, her words filtering through the haze of self-pity and heartache mid-sentence. ‘You sounded hurt, and I was stuck in Blue and then there was the explosion and I was so scared that-’

‘Wait,’ Shiro interrupted. His voice was still dry as the desert, but it at least sounded closer to level. ‘What were you doing in Blue? Your mother didn’t-’

‘Blue’s mine,’ Akira blurted, the same way she had told him she wanted to join the Intergalactic Garrison Space Program the first time; equal parts terrified and excited, the kind of hopeful that went against her better judgement but was so powerful it won out, anyway. She sat up and looked at him, fierce, daring him to argue and that look on her face, so sure he’d do just that, broke his heart. He never wanted to be that person, that father, to her. ‘She called to me after you sent me away and I came, and I flew her, and Uncle Lance and Mom say she’s mine now and I’m hers and I know it’s a huge responsibility and I know we’re at war now but I’m so happy, daddy. I’m so happy because you were right, there’s nothing like being a paladin and this was all I ever wanted, to fly like you and mom and now I get to fly with Mom and Lance and Pidge and Hunk and it’s the best thing ever and I’m _sorry_ ,’ she finished, winded, her eyes sparkling with tears. She was searching his face for something important.

‘You’re the Blue Paladin now,’ Shiro rasped, half a question, half a statement of fact. Akira nodded, all her words used up for a moment and Shiro instinctively crushed her back to his chest and focused on keeping it rising and falling in normal rhythm.

All he wanted to do was panic. It was irrational, he knew, but just the thought of his little girl flying out into the big wide dangerous universe filled him with a sense of dread so heavy it threatened to sink him through the floor. It sat on his chest and pushed until he couldn’t breathe under it. What Akira was talking about, being a Paladin of Voltron and fighting in a war, was just about Shiro’s worst nightmare made real. Fighting a war had cost him his arm, his sanity, taken years from him he would never truly get back. It had lost him Keith. His best friend, his brother, the man he had practically raised from a preteen. He couldn’t even fathom losing his daughter the same way he’d lost Keith, lost Adam, lost himself. He had _refused_.

But the universe really had it out for Takashi Shirogane. It would never be done bleeding him. Over and over and over.

But this was something he couldn’t fight, couldn’t change. He knew better, now. There was no preventing this moment. It felt inevitable somehow. A fixed point in her history. He felt suddenly, in the way he sometimes did, that he had known all along. It was almost as if from the moment she’d opened her eyes as he held her in his arms for the first time - tear-stained and shaking like a leaf and so full to bursting with love that he didn’t know where to put it all - that his precious, beautiful daughter was born for this. She had known all along where she belonged and Shiro had been too afraid, too scarred by grief and war and hurt to let her get there.

Through all the fear and remorse, another emotion swelled so fiercely and so suddenly he almost choked on it.

‘I’m so-’ Akira tensed. He took a breath and tried again, hugging her tighter as if he could squeeze away all the damage he’d done. ‘I’m so _proud_ of you.’

Akira sobbed, a loud, full-bodied, jerky thing that made him ache and rage and want to scream. Because he was proud of her and loved her so much he couldn’t contain it inside himself. His body was a glass bottle holding back a supernova, and he didn’t know how he didn’t shatter. Perhaps he already had, and this was the result: a broken man with too many jagged edges, a selfish, scared, irrational thing that hurt anyone who cared about him even when he tried his best to keep them safe.

Akira was fourteen and already reaching the stage where he couldn’t protect her anymore. He had never been able to protect Allura, not really, and he knew her well enough to know that she did a better job of protecting herself and their family than he ever could. She was strong and fierce and _good_.

Shiro met her eyes over the head of their daughter. She stood in the doorway, watching, silent and still, and sadder than he had seen her in a long time.

Allura had such a capacity for sadness. She’d worn it like armour when he’d first met her, even when it was still fresh and bleeding. She would never stop grieving for Altea and the family Zarkon had taken from her—both the old and the new. The difference between Allura and Shiro was that Allura’s sadness motivated her to do better, be better, make better, and it made Shiro fight harder, work harder, be harder. Even when he only ended up hurting himself or the ones he loved in the process.

‘Shiro,’ she murmured from the door. Akira stilled, turned to face her, cheeks wet but a smile spreading across her face. ‘You’re back.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Shiro said. It felt inadequate in every way, but he had no more words to fix this.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said, stepping into the room, hands reaching out to him and the girl in his lap.

Shiro’s heart clenched. He didn’t deserve her, this brave, wonderful woman who couldn’t stop seeing the best in him, who really believed it wasn’t his fault even though he’d endangered so many lives and hurt her so many times.

She reached him and ran a hand through his hair. He leaned into the touch like a drowning man to a life raft and clung desperately to the sensation.

‘Sam wants to see you,’ she said softly. ‘When you’re back on your feet.’

Shiro nodded. He knew what was coming. ‘I’ll see him this afternoon,’ he promised.

‘I’ll come with you.’ Allura said it unquestioningly, unreservedly and Shiro hated that he needed that. He hated that he needed her so much. He couldn’t go to that meeting alone. He couldn’t do it.

Akira looked like she wanted to say something but one look from her mother had her closing her mouth and curling up in his lap like she was still a small child even though she was getting too big to fit comfortably now.

Shiro closed his eyes, leaned his head against the armchair cushion and just breathed.

* * *

To Sam’s credit, he looked remorseful as he said the words, _medical discharge with honours_ like they weren’t a kindness. Shiro knew what happened during the battle was his fault, he knew that he had been so desperate to get better, too blinded by years of peacetime and the need to keep fighting. He had compromised everything and let a hostile force loose on this reality, one with better ships, better weaponry and better organisation than the Alliance could match. They lost the _Thetis_ , and the _Atlas_ would take months to repair. They’d almost lost the _Athena_ for good, and all of it was because Shiro couldn’t manage this… _thing,_ this… condition that was his life now.

He was supposed to have been getting better. The flashbacks had stopped for a while. He had thought he could finally move on with his life, work on being _present_ for once. But he hadn’t been ready for a combat mission, especially one on the scale he saw out there, and deep down, he’d know it. Deep down, he thought Allura had known it, too, and she hadn’t stopped him. She had thought he was getting better, too.

On the way home, stripped of rank, stripped of role, and every way he had defined himself for twenty years save for one, all in those four words; _medical discharge with honours,_ Shiro announced quietly, ‘I’m going to stay with Lance for a while.’

It still seemed bizarre to him sometimes, that the group of misfit kids he’d met in the desert nearly twenty years ago weren’t kids anymore. Instinct still told him to go to Matt’s- he was Shiro’s best friend, and would always, _always_ be happy to take him in, but Matt had a husband, two kids and a sibling all under one chaotic roof. Lance had two cats and a spare bedroom.

Allura gripped the steering wheel of the car so hard her knuckles paled, but she nodded wordlessly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Shiro said for the umpteenth time. He wished it was the last.

‘I’ll drive you,’ Allura offered.

‘I…’ he paused, letting what she was truly asking of him sink in. ‘Thank you,’ he agreed. He would allow them this, he decided. One last act of selfishness from him, one last act of mercy from her. Wordlessly, they stepped out of the car together and walked into the house. Shiro hated how the tightness in his chest that had plagued him all day loosened with every step, eased with every article of clothing he folded neatly into his to-go bag.

He’d known all along this was the right thing to do. The past few years of peacetime had allowed him to hope… but if the defeat by this new unknown army had proven anything, it was that his family couldn’t afford to hold him up anymore. They had real battles to fight, he couldn’t ask them to fight his, too.

He stopped at Akira’s room on the way out. She was watching television in her room, curled around a large pillow with the Voltron logo on it. It matched her pyjama pants. She had always been on the lookout for Voltron merchandise. When Shiro had asked, she had said it was because she was proud of her family and wanted everyone to know. Maybe that was true, maybe it went deeper than that, but the sight of her in pyjamas with cartoony little Voltrons on them or wearing a hoodie printed to look like the Black Paladin’s armour had always been equal parts endearing and concerning. He hadn’t wanted this life for his little girl. He hadn’t wanted any of this for her. He didn’t think he would ever forgive himself for the ways he’d hurt her. He couldn’t do it anymore.

‘Hey,’ he said.

Akira glanced over at him and paused the TV. ‘Hey, how did it go?’

Shiro sighed and dropped his bag by her door. She didn’t miss the movement and immediately straightened up, clutching her pillow tighter. She was still so young. Too young. Like Pidge when they first joined the team. It wasn’t fair.

Akira’s gaze darted between the bag and Shiro. ‘What’s going on.’

Shiro sat down on her bed, taking one of her hands in his. ‘Sweetheart, I have to go stay with your Uncle Lance for a while. With everything that is going on with Voltron and the war… It’s best for everyone if I step back for a bit.’

‘But you’re a Vice-Admiral,’ she protested. ‘You’re important.’

Shiro shook his head. ‘No, Kira. I’ve been discharged.’ The words hurt more than they should. Too much. They scratched at his throat and tasted vile on his tongue. It wasn’t _fair_. Not one single aspect of this whole situation was even approaching _fair_. ‘It’s your turn,’ he said and hated that he had to say it. There was no arguing with the Blue Lion. He knew better than anyone. There were a lot of things he could excuse with necessity, but this was his _daughter_ and that instinctive need to shield her from the universe was much more difficult to ignore this time around.

Akira’s eyes glazed over with tears and he smiled sadly at her, brushing a stray lock of black hair away from her face. ‘Hey, it’s okay,’ he promised. ‘I’ll still be around. I’ll still be there for you and help in whatever way I can, so don’t worry about me. You have to focus on the mission right now. Focus on staying safe and I’ll focus on being here when you get home, okay?’

Akira nodded, her tears spilling over. ‘Okay,’ she agreed. Shiro sighed in relief and pulled her into a tight hug, memorizing the feel of her tucked safely in his arms. ‘Hey, dad?’ she murmured into his chest.

Shiro kissed her on the top of the head. ‘Yeah?’

‘Are you and mom still… Are you…’

Shiro pulled away, taking in her terrified face. It wasn’t the thought of the war that was scaring her right now and that broke Shiro’s heart a little bit more. ‘Oh, honey. I don’t know. I love you and I love your mom, but I don’t know what will happen. I just know I have to go. Can you understand that?’ Akira shook her head. She let out a harsh sob. ‘Hey, shhh,’ he murmured, kissing her on the forehead. ‘Everything will be okay.’

Letting the tears fall freely, she stared up at him with wide blue eyes that never failed to undo him. ‘Promise?’

Shiro nodded, schooling his face into something certain. It was a necessary lie. ‘Everything will work out, I promise.’

He prayed he wouldn’t have to break this one, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for this chapter:  
> \- James and several minor characters are injured from the battle. Mentions of blood. James has a dislocated shoulder but it's mostly just implied.  
> \- Lotor mentions finding bodies of crew members who were exposed to space, but it's never described in detail.  
> \- Matt sees one unnamed body that isn't moving. The implication is the person is dead.  
> \- We see Shiro during one of his "attacks". Shiro's condition is not deliberately based on any existing mental illness but he experiences things similar to flashbacks, dissociation and/or hallucination. This is not described in detail from his POV in this chapter, but we see it from Matt's outside perspective. Shiro is NOT violent.  
> -Shiro experiences some serious guilt and other unpleasant emotions relating to his condition in this chapter, which results in him distancing himself from his family for (he thinks) the good of everyone involved. He is not in a good head-space at all, neither is he capable of making good decisions.
> 
> That's all that I could think of. Let me know if I missed anything and I'll add it to the list.
> 
> If you would like more of this series, leave a review here, or send me an ask/PM on my [Tumblr](https://seethestarsalittlecloser.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> If you want more from this AU, just want to scream about VLD in general, you can come by my ask box or PM me on [Tumblr](seethestarsalittlecloser.tumblr.com).
> 
> A Guide to the Garrison ships and squadrons mentioned:  
> \- IGF Atlas - Intergalactic Garrison Flagship. Has 2 fighter squadrons assigned; Ares Squad and Calypso Squad. Captained by Shiro  
> \- IGB Athena - Intergalactic Garrison Battlecruiser. Smaller than the Atlas, but with more weapons and greater agility. Has 1 fighter squadron assigned: Nike Squad. Captained by Veronica  
> \- IGB Thetis - Same as the Athena. Has 1 fighter squadron; Achilles Squad. Captained by Lance  
> \- IGSV Daedalus - Intergalactic Garrison Science Vessel. A strictly non-combat vessel tasked with a mission of scientific exploration and discovery. Less regimented hierarchic structure than the military ships. Captained by Pidge (and Hunk, unofficially).


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